


Love

by cuddles



Series: Sixth Sense [2]
Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: 19th Century, Crowley's Century-Long Nap (Good Omens), M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-19
Updated: 2019-04-19
Packaged: 2020-01-16 05:46:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18515125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cuddles/pseuds/cuddles
Summary: Aziraphale can sense love. Crowley's is no exception.A companion piece to "Desire," but it stands alone.





	Love

Aziraphale had always known Crowley loved him.

Even standing at the Eastern Gate, chatting with the peculiar demon, he had sensed a tiny flicker of it. He didn't know what had brought it on. He'd only been saying something about his sword, and suddenly Crawly was looking at him more intently. Compared with the light of divine love, it had been practically nothing -- a little candle flame of affection -- so he'd hardly noticed. But that was the beginning.

Since then he had sensed love from the demon at all sorts of odd times. Crowley loved three things: Earth, humanity in general, and Aziraphale. It was strange to know that a demon was capable of love, especially love for the people he spent his life tormenting, and for his hereditary enemy. But Aziraphale accepted it as ineffable. The warm glow he felt whenever Crowley was nearby was harmless enough.

Aziraphale himself, of course, loved all living beings, as was proper for an angel. (He felt that the silverfish he occasionally found in his bookshop and smashed with a paperweight didn't count.)

He had never given much thought to Crowley's love until one day, in 1806, he received a letter from the demon. It said Crowley was planning to sleep for eighty years or so, and would Aziraphale mind covering for him? Just the usual, the letter said, filing a few reports with Hell.

Aziraphale was much put out. Sleep? _Sleep_? The two enemies had been meeting regularly for centuries by now, and Aziraphale didn't think he could face the prospect of having no one to get drinks with for the next eighty years.

So that very morning he went to visit the demon in his fashionable London flat. No one answered when he knocked, but the door obligingly unlocked itself. He found the rooms eerily quiet. Perhaps Crowley had dismissed the housekeeper and errand boy. Aziraphale ascended the stairs, which didn't creak like the ones in his own rather humbler quarters, and paused outside Crowley's bedroom door.

"Crowley? Are you in there?" Aziraphale demanded, though his voice came out quieter than he'd intended. No reply.

Aziraphale raised his hand to knock, thought better of it, and very softly opened the door. In a few steps he crossed the room to the extravagantly large canopy bed. "Crowley --" he began and stopped.

Aziraphale had only rarely seen Crowley sleep before. He looked different asleep. He lay half curled up on his side, cheek pressed into the pillow. His vivid red curls were mussed. Without his dark spectacles his face looked naked and oddly innocent. Aziraphale caught himself staring and swallowed, looking away.

It occurred to him that the usual sense of love he detected in Crowley's presence was muted now. He took a step forward, tentatively reaching out with his aura to feel the demon's. Yes -- it was still there. Just sleeping. He didn't know why he felt relieved.

Crowley shifted slightly in his sleep, and Aziraphale saw the flicker of movement behind his eyelids that meant he was dreaming. Unthinkingly, Aziraphale took another step forward. Something about Crowley's sleeping face fascinated him. Crowley's soft-looking lips moved as though muttering a word, though no sound came out.

A little burst of love struck Aziraphale, and he drew back, alarmed. Was Crowley dreaming about him? It made his breath catch, that glow of feeling. Suddenly he was terrified the demon would awake, would find him here, and he turned and went out as quietly as he could manage.

***

He waited ninety-six years, and when Crowley finally woke up, Aziraphale never took Crowley's love for granted again.

In fact, now that Aziraphale had been forced to consider it consciously, the thought gnawed at him. Demons were not meant to love. Demons were not meant to love _angels_. Was it a trick? Some dark spell Hell had laid upon Crowley, broadcasting an illusion of love that could fool even Aziraphale's supernal senses?

And then sometimes Crowley looked at him with a certain unreadable expression, one that made Aziraphale's heart race and his mouth go dry, and he wondered, after six thousand years, what kind of love it was.


End file.
